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[It is rare to see the New York Times and other Western imperialist media write so bluntly about the decline of the US hegemonic controls over the world imperialist system. This article draws a stark picture, although their claim that a big part of the cause is the infighting in Washington fails to focus on the several-decades accumulation of crisis and contradictions within the post-WW2 capitalist system, exacerbated by endless wars and shifting production, trade, and resource alliances and contentions, not to mention the waves of mass resistance. And only briefly mentioned is the huge challenge by the other major imperialist power, China. That is a subject more deeply explored in the pathbreaking“Is China an Imperialist Country?”by NB Turner (available at http://www.red-path.net/analysis/is-china-an-imperialist-countryor in pdf at http://www.red-path.net/images/RP-paper-IsChinaAnImperialistCountry.pdf). — Frontlines ed]

At Global Economic Gathering, U.S. Primacy Is Seen as Ebbing

[The clock is ticking uncomfortably fast, apparently–Frontlines} Janet L. Yellen, chairwoman of the Federal Reserve, checking the time after a financial ministers and governors photo on Friday. Credit Gary Cameron/Reuters

WASHINGTON — As world leaders converge here for their semiannual trek to the capital of what is still the world’s most powerful economy, concern is rising in many quarters that the United States is retreating from global economic leadership just when it is needed most.

The spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank have filled Washington with motorcades and traffic jams and loaded the schedules of President Obama and Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew. But they have also highlighted what some in Washington and around the world see as a United States government so bitterly divided that it is on the verge of ceding the global economic stage it built at the end of World War II and has largely directed ever since.

“It’s almost handing over legitimacy to the rising powers,” Arvind Subramanian, the chief economic adviser to the government of India, said of the United States in an interview on Friday. “People can’t be too public about these things, but I would argue this is the single most important issue of these spring meetings.”

NEW DELHI: At a time when the government is busy with security preparations for US President Barack Obama’s arrival to be the chief guest at the 65th Republic Day celebrations on January 26 here, the Maoists have called out to people to “condemn and boycott” the visit.

“In protest of calling him to be the chief guest at the at the Republic Day celebrations, we call upon people to observe 26th January as a day of protest and to boycott all the meetings,” a written statement issued by the Dandakaranya Special Zonal Committee of the CPI (Maoist), dated January 5, said.

PM Modi with US President Barack Obama at the White House in September 2014.

saying 53 anti-Communists freed this week are just a start

[This article from the reactionary and bombastic-imperialist Daily Mail, is true to their arrogant form. But while revealing that “diplomatic relations” is just an excuse for new imperialist dictation toward Cuba, there is, of course, no mention of a “quid pro quo” — though many might ask, where is the Cuban demand for release of political prisoners in the US, as well as …. where is the demand from Cuba for US to get out of the illegally occupied Guantanamo? — Frontlines ed.]

The White House revealed on Tuesday that it dictated to Cuba which political prisoners should be released immediately

‘Our efforts to secure the release of other political prisoners that are unjustly detained in Cuba is ongoing,’ the president’s spokesman said

He did not say how many other dissidents the U.S. government is lobbying Raul Castro’s regime to set free

The White House revealed on Tuesday that it dictated to Cuba which political prisoners should be released and that there are additional detainees beyond the 53 that have already been let go that it wants to see freed.

‘Our efforts to secure the release of other political prisoners that are unjustly detained in Cuba is ongoing,’ White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest told reporters.

Earnest did not say how many other political prisoners it is lobbying Raul Castro’s regime to set free nor would he give out the names of the original 53.

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said on Tuesday that the U.S. is working to free additional political prisoners in Cuba who are still behind bars beyond the 53 names it initially submitted to the Raul Castro regime

[We are not accustomed to quoting the Bible, but sometimes the biblical words have become part of common culture, as in this: “Matthew 7:15-20, ‘You Will Know Them by Their Fruits’ — ‘Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles?Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.Therefore by their fruits you will know them.'” Which is appropriate warned, when perusing the shifting claims and tides of Obama-ists like Angela Davis, whose latest statement (read down to her Guardian article) reaches into more radical territory to restore credibility. Davis, who partially broke with the path of the revisionist CPUSA many years ago, and who has made contributions to the growing prison abolitionist movement, still has promoted electoral-democratic-reform illusions about the imperialist system against revolutionary strategies. (our highlights, for emphasis). — Frontlines ed.]

From Black Agenda Report, by Glen Ford — March 27, 2012 — “Angela Davis Lost Her Mind Over Obama” — The “delusional effect” that swept Black America with the advent of the First Black President has warped and weakened the mental powers of some of our most revered icons – and it has been painful to behold. Earlier this month, Angela Davis diminished herself as a scholar and thinker in a gush of nonsense about the corporate executive in the White House. The occasion was a conference on Empowering Women of Color, in Berkeley, California. Davis shared the stage with Grace Lee Boggs, the 96-year-old activist from Detroit. The subject was social transformation, but Davis suddenly launched into how wonderful it felt to see people “dancing in the streets” when Barack Obama was elected. She called that campaign a “victory, not of an individual, but of…people who refused to believe that it was impossible to elect a person, a Black person, who identified with the Black radical tradition.”……There was a hush in the room, as if in mourning of the death of brain cells. Angela Davis was saying that Barack Obama is a man who identifies with the Black radical tradition. She said it casually, as if Black radicalism and Obama were not antithetical terms; as if everything he has written, said and done in national politics has not been a repudiation of the Black radical tradition; as if his rejection of his former minister, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, was not a thorough disavowal of the Black radical tradition. In his famous 2008 campaign speech in Philadelphia, Obama blamed such radicals for compounding the nation’s problems.

From Democracy Now, January 21, 2013 — Addressing the Peace Ball in Washington, D.C., on Sunday, the renowned author, educator and political activist Angela Davis urges those content with President Obama’s re-election to continue pushing him for social change. “This time around we cannot subordinate our aspirations and our hopes to presidential agendas,” Davis says. “Our passionate support for President Barack Obama … should also be expressed in our determination to raise issues that have been largely ignored or not appropriately addressed by the administration.”

And Angela today, adjusting her tone, more accurately and radical, to the shifting tides, as anger and defiance grow…………

“From Michael Brown to Assata Shakur, the racist state of America persists”

Although racist state violence has been a consistent theme in the history of people of African descent in North America, it has become especially noteworthy during the administration of the first African-American president, whose very election was widely interpreted as heralding the advent of a new, postracial era.

[Chinese imperialism is moving rapidly, knitting new alliances of trade, investment, security, intel-surveillance, and other challenges to the “traditional” US domination of these world relations. Finance is one of the most active arenas of this inter-imperialist contention, as this fidgety New York Times article describes, from US perspective. Significantly, the article, while focusing on the challenge to the US-dominated World Bank, does not go into the parallel challenge (to the US dollar standard) that China is making on the monetary systems of trade, investment, and credit — raising the yuan/renminbi as the significant “alternate” currency/monetary system. The Wall Street Journal reported, “The U.K. government moved a step closer on Thursday to becoming the first country other than China to issue bonds in China’s yuan.” Revolutionary people everywhere are beginning to note that the contradictions within and between imperialists are sharpening, and becoming more muscular. It won’t do to focus on the US as the only imperialist to oppose. — Frontlines ed.]

U.S. Opposing China’s Answer to World Bank

BEIJING — For almost a year, China has been pitching an idea to its neighbors in Asia: a big, internationally funded bank that would offer quick financing for badly needed transportation, telecommunications and energy projects in underdeveloped countries across the region.

With the public backing of President Xi Jinping and a pledge from Beijing to contribute much of the $50 billion in initial capital, the plan could be seen as an answer to critics who have long argued that China should take on greater responsibilities as a world power. But the United States, perhaps the most vocal of such critics, especially on issues such as climate change and arms proliferation, has not embraced the Chinese proposal.

Instead, in quiet conversations with China’s potential partners, American officials have lobbied against the development bank with unexpected determination and engaged in a vigorous campaign to persuade important allies to shun the project, according to senior United States officials and representatives of other governments involved.

Washington, DC: The Kashmir American Council staged a sit-in outside the White House on Monday (Sept. 29) as Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived to attend a private dinner where he was due to meet US President Obama and other key US officials.

A number of Sikh protesters also gathered outside the White House and raised slogans against the Indian prime minister.

An “International The News” report says police had to intervene when some of Narendra Modi supporters and protesters came face to face.

WASHINGTON: The Kashmir American Council staged a sit-in outside the White House on Monday as Indian Prime Minister arrived to attend a private dinner where he was due to meet President Obama and other key US officials.

[We have received other reports that, while the numbers of protesters were much smaller than claimed in this AJA press release, the action clearly and prominently challenged the fascist Modi’s claim of universal embrace and acclaim. The views of AJA are offered here by Frontlines, to understand the growing and diverse opposition to the Imperialist’s Modi. — Frontlines ed.]

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Massive protests send clear demands to Indian PM Modi: End suppression of minorities and desist from clamping down on civil society institutions

Alliance for Justice and Accountability, a broad coalition of organizations and individuals, announced that the rally this morning in New York City during Prime Minister Modi’s event at Madison Square Garden, was a huge success. Hundreds of people, including human rights activists, professionals, students and people from all walks of life attended the rally. Protesters were a large and spirited group of Indian Americans comprising of people of all faiths and ideological persuasions, with one thing in common: they were demanding justice and accountability in the case of Mr. Modi, and an end to repression of minorities and crony capitalism in India.

“The protests have demonstrated the rejection of a leader who represents a hateful and divisive agenda, ” said Robindra Deb, a key AJA organizer of protest on September 28. “We represent the 70% of Indians that did not vote for Mr. Modi,” added Mr. Deb. Continue reading →